This invention relates to metal seals for pipeline valves which have at least one ring-shaped, metal seal ring secured to either the housing or the movable member of the valve, such as a rotatable ball or a pivotable disk. The seal ring has a radially oriented, flat ring section from which a sealing lip extends which seals against a metal seating surface of the valve.
There are a variety of known metal seal ring configurations for establishing a seal in one or both flow directions through a valve, such as a disk valve. To prevent leakage, such seal rings require a high degree of precision in their manufacture and subsequent installation into the spaces provided for them. German patent publication DE-OS 4,343,562 shows a laminar metal seal made of two seal rings. They are supported in either flow direction through the valve by the prevailing pressure and are replaceably mounted in the valve housing. This sealing arrangement works as expected but has the disadvantage that it requires a relatively large number of different parts which must be separately manufactured, a time consuming and costly task. The present invention eliminates this disadvantage.